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Mario Capozzoli, a local chef and farmer, thinks people are forgetting the importance of food in family life and communities, so he launched his website, greatgrandmother.org, to remind us.
The name of his site comes from a book by journalist Michael Pollan called In Defense of Food. Pollan advises people not to eat or buy anything that their great -grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. Capozzoli said he thought those instructions were simple enough and immediately set out to follow them and created his website to help others do the same. He launched the site in May, after months of research, and it is now getting over 5,000 hits a day.
"I don't want to take a real political stance. I'd like people's values to be created by their own desires, but based on fact," Capozzoli said. "I give lots of different sides. It's really about letting people go in and kind of define what they want to value."
On the website, Capozzoli describes his work as bringing "together the Locavore movement, Slow Food philosophy, whole foods movement, and the belief that when we bring together our families and communities around food, we accomplish more than the act of eating - we build community." He posts articles and links to related sites to educate people about each of these food movements. If you visit the site, you will find explanations of each of these movements, to gardening advice, recipes, tips on buying local produce and information on which farmers markets will be open next weekend.
Capozzoli was at a local farm stand last year when he overheard a woman confuse locally grown vegetables with organic vegetables, which are grown without pesticides. Local vegetables can be organic, but they aren't always, which is something that often confuses the public, according to Capozzoli. This encounter inspired him to create the site as a resource for people confused about those differences.
He also wants to educate people about the dangerous effects of pesticides. Capozzoli used to live in California and loved to drive through the strawberry fields in Ventura County. But he had to time his drives to avoid the planes flying overhead and spraying pesticides on the crops.
"Pesticides have links to birth defects, cancer, respiratory illness, and a host of other really nasty diseases," he said.
Capozzoli said that the one constant through the whole development process was the emphasis on values, both on a personal and community level.
"It's about an educated and balanced approach for people, based on values," he said. And Capozzoli practices what he preaches. He lives on King's Grant Farm in Sunapee, where he farms and gardens. He grows apples, cherries, blueberries, raspberries and boysenberries, and has 15 or 16 different types of vegetables in his kitchen garden. He also gets together with other local farmers twice a year to share cuttings. His 7-year-old son Schuyler even has his own garden full of broccoli, brussels sprouts and herbs.
Capozzoli worked in his parents' restaurants in Southern California from a young age and attended culinary school, so he brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the local food showcases that he often puts on. He goes to farmers markets and local harvest events to share creative recipes. He also shows people how to make their crops last longer, either by planting later in the season or canning, jarring and pickling what they grow. He said that he can last all winter on the tomatoes and blueberries he cans. Capozzoli attributes the success of his website to his constant updates and willingness to incorporate suggestions from readers. He does all the research for his site himself, reading a book a week, and estimates that he spends a couple hours a day, five days a week, updating the information.
"The content doesn't stay dry and stagnant. I'm constantly updating, moving things around, adjusting to my market," he said. "The market said, 'We want gardening stuff and we want recipes,' which wasn't in the first part of the plan. So I recently added all that stuff."
He has received e-mails from people all over the country - including Seattle, San Diego and Albuquerque - asking if he could set up similar websites for their region and is considering that option.
Capozzoli does all of this work on a volunteer basis, even donating the food to the showcases. He runs a management consulting company for nonprofit organizations, but would eventually like to expand his website enough so that it could be his primary focus. He is in talks with some Boston-based marketing firms to include advertising on the website as a source of revenue.
"I've been doing consulting for 28 years now, and that pays the bills, but this is my passion," he said.
And the focus of that passion is the promotion of family life and community through food. "Come together and have a potluck, show off Grandma's recipe," Capozzoli said. "Communities are getting divorced from that and aren't as connected anymore." He calls this idea "around the table" and cites Yale University's Rudd Center for Childhood Obesity and Food as support. According to Capozzoli, Rudd Center studies have found conclusive evidence that the more time you spend around the kitchen table as a family, the greater chance of reducing risky behavior in children, such as alcohol and drug abuse, early sexual activity, petty crime and poor academic performance.
And he proposes taking that idea a step further, beyond the family unit and out into communities. Capozzoli wants people to define their values, no matter what they are, and share them in their community.
"Some people want good, honest and compassionate treatment of farm workers, others say local, others say organic, others say they are more interested in nutritional value, and others in what is least expensive, and that's fine," Capozzoli said. "But think about it. Explore your values and then come up with what your own food value list is. That's what it comes down to."
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